Here is all the stuff
that didn't fit into the other pages, but is good to know.
- If you get an error saying BAD_MEM_POINTER, always select OK (you
may have to do this several times). Otherwise DesignWorks will exit and you will lose all your unsaved work.
- To check to see if a wire is properly connected, click on it and
DesignWorks will highlight the entire connected wire, including pins
to the components the wire is actually connect to.
You can also move around a component; all wires connected to it will follow.
(Wires not following are thus not connected.)
- At an intersection of wires there is a connection only if there
is a dot at the intersection. As above, click on the wire to see
what's connected.
- Pressing the control key while placing a wire will flip the orientation of the wire.
- The arrow keys can change the orientation of a part when you are placeing it.
- To move a binary switch or hex keyboard after placing it, hold down the SHIFT key while dragging it with the mouse.
- To create a new library to save your own parts in, you simply need to
right click on the parts list library window and select New. Remember to save the
library in your students directory on the Z:\ drive & not on the local
drive.
Later when you want to open your parts library again, you simply right
click on the parts list library window and select Open. Then browse to the path of your directory where you
saved the parts list library file *.clf
- To set the delay of a gate to zero, click on the part, then choose parameters (Control-K)
from the design menu and enter a zero.
- Here's a quick explanation of the letter codes you might see displayed
in DesignWorks when you place a binary probe into your circuit schematic.
- "Z" : High Impedance, The probe is not connected to an input signal. So
maybe there's a gap in your circuit wiring or the ouput of a module
isn't connected to any inputs.
- "X" : Undefined, The probe is connected to a wire but one or more of the
inputs which determine the wire's output have not been assigned a value
yet so DesignWorks can't compute whether the wire should be a 1 or a 0.
This could mean your verilog code isn't getting reached in the always
block.
- "C" : Conflicting Signals, There are 2 inputs driving the same wire.
For example, you place 2 binary switches on the same wire and the first
is set to 1 and the second is set to 0, so DesignWorks doesn't know
which value you want on the wire.
- If you get the error "Concatenating unlengthed scalars" in your verilog
code it's probably because you've done something like
this...
reg[4:0] A;
A = {0, A3, A2, A1, A0};
The error is because the 0 value is in decimal and the compiler doesn't know
how many bits you want 0 to be.
Try this instead...
A = {1'b0, A3, A2, A1, A0};
which tells it to use 1 binary digit for 0.